The Bobcats: Ah, Charlotte, Charlotte with your dependable ol' young Bobcats, a team that will never let you down, if what you're looking for is to be let down. Charlotte of the single playoff visit, Charlotte where greatness comes to age and watch youth never come of age—it is you Charlotte who gives hope to the weary, who cradles the wounded team's hopes close to your heart, who lays down low these dreams that are their own, so that other teams and their dreams may prosper.

When a team is down 25 in New Orleans, your name is whispered in "remember when's", when the Nets have lost two in a row, you let them know... that they can win again.

The sweetness of your mercy forgives your opponent for having fewer assists than turnovers. You can commit half their turnovers and still lose, because your shots are like turnovers. You only grab 6 offensive rebounds and let your opponent grab 43 defensive, because your shots are like turnovers. You rely on jumpshots from Kemba Walker, Gerald Henderson, and Ben Gordon, and lose at home by 21 points, because each time you shoot the ball, chances are, it's a turnover.

Oh Charlotte, Charlotte of the Charlotteans, you deserve more than these charlatans; Charlotte known as the Queen City—you deserve more than these mewling, stinky kitties.

Phoenix: The desert is not a forgiving place. Since their inception in 1968, a year of nation wide rioting and MLK and RFK's assassinations, the Suns have reached the finals twice but never won. In his book Giant Steps, Kareem writes about anticipating racist heckling whenever the Bucks would visit the Suns. Am I suggesting that the entire Suns franchise is cursed because a few bad apples were offensive towards Kareem Abdul Jabbar some 40 odd years ago, therefore ruining everything forever for an entire state and its legions of enthusiastic, dedicated basketball fans? Yes. Yes, I am.

Or it could just be that they're relying on Goran Dragic to be "the man". Either way, the Suns remain in the race to be the worst team out West this year. Meanwhile, Kareem never mentioned anything about being hassled in Toronto. The Raptors relied on a balanced scoring attack to overwhelm the sub-par Suns.

My advice to Suns fans. Listen to Isaac Hayes and love one another. With the way the Suns are playing right now, you can't expect them to entertain you; and at least when you love one another, you got a real chance at an actual "satisfaction guaranteed" night.

The Pistons: They've all left now: Tay, Chauncey, Sheed, Ben, and Rip. Against the Knicks their starting 5 was Jason Maxiell, Jonas Jerebko, Kyle Singler, Brandon Knight, and Jose Calderon. The well oiled machine that dominated the Eastern Conference has been replaced by a shoddy casing full of used pinball machine parts.

To their credit, the starting 5 of used pinball machine parts did score 66 points. The problem was, with so many reserves starting, that left very little scrap metal left to come off the bench, which is why the final score was 87-77, Knicks... Although, that doesn't explain why the score wasn't 117-77 Knicks.

*Carmelo missed the game with a sore knee.

The Bulls: The Bulls put a novel wrinkle in yesterday's games, when unlike the Pistons, Cats or Suns, they opted to get their asses kicked on someone else's floor. The floor in question is by the Alamo, or where the Alamo used to be... I can't remember. It's also the floor where Tony Parker used to be, and teams would be wise to remember it's the floor where Tim Duncan still is. That means no weak stuff, and Timmy let the Bulls know with 5 blocks. Noah absorbed the worst of it, with 3 blocked attempts on 4 of 13 shooting.

The Bucks: Chances are, if a you were a midwestern team last night, you were losing. The Bucks were no exception. The entire division played on Wednesday, with a Cleveland victory over Utah being the lone bright spot.

Milwaukee played reasonably well. The Broped cruised to a combined 40 points and 18 assists, while Ilyasova hit some threes and threw in 20 points. The problem was they were playing the Clippers, who simply demonstrated their superiority and then pointed to the exit.

The Horny Cans: Did the other, other LA team demonstrate their superiority in New Orleans? Well, for a quarter they did, but since that quarter was the 4th, and the demonstration was a 33-9 quarter, it all worked out for the Purple and Gold. This latest resurrection surpassed the time the Lakers rallied from a 20 point hole against the Bald-cats and became LA's biggest comeback of the season.

I'll let the images of carnage and destruction speak for themselves.

Check around the 2 minute mark for a play where the Lakers fool the Hornets into guarding the wrong basket.

If anyone wanted to make it, an even longer video montage could be constructed of all the times New Orleans pissed the ball away down the stretch. The Hornets reached 102 points with about 7 minutes left, but were then held scoreless for the remainder of the game.

Ah Bartleby! Ah Humanity!

Lacktion:

Hawks-76ers: Royal Ivey had one of the bawfulest night's of the whole year—weighing in with 3 misses, 2 turnovers, and 5 fouls for a perfect 10 suck differential in 12:51. Mike Scott left a simple, statless 1:01.

Nets-Bobcats: Tomike Shengelia committed a turnover in a minute and 53 seconds for a +1 suck differential. Jeffery Taylor replied for the Bobcats with a +2 suck differential.

Lakers-Hornets: Robert Sacre blew into the Big Easy with a +3 suck differential in 4:28.

You should use "fewer" here, not "less." Fewer gets used when one can number or quantify something Example #1: "The NBA has fewer players than the NFL, but the NFL is less fun. You can quantify the number of players, but not fun.

Example #2: Miller light is less filling, perhaps because it has fewer calories.

And I never new about Kareem and racists in Phoenix. I'm betting that Russell, a generation earlier, could tell us what each one was wearing.

"The well oiled machine that dominated the Eastern Conference has been replaced by a shoddy casing full of used pinball machine parts."

Poetic!

{FYI my money's on Carmelo of the career high mpg getting some rest time, hence "sore knee." I'd be resting Carmelo in sure wins as well. Just don't fly him home or you'll get fined like Pop did.}

Bulls: I really loving watching Noah play, but who doesn't love Timmy putting the whippersnapper in his place? I'm really rooting for a final Spurs playoff run this year. Because no matter how good Parker's numbers are, this team goes as Timmy goes. Throwback year = championship?

You drop a Bartleby allusion pearl on us? I'd take my hat off to you, sir, but I'd prefer not to.

Thanks Wormboy, I corrected the error. If I had thought about it I might've remembered, but I have a habit of barreling through that grammatical distinction. I'd prefer not to say whether or not it was a Bartleby Allusion.

I also enjoy watching Mr. Noah play, but Duncan is a Mt. Rushmore figure. What the Spurs continue to do is amazing. It's too wild in the West for me to predict who'll go to the finals. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the Spurs, but for that matter it could be ...the Nuggets? The crystal ball is murky.

"casing full of used pinball machine parts" I ripped off of Back to the Future just like Doc ripped off the Libyans.

I would highly recommend reading Giant Steps. Kareem's just such an interesting and thoughtful guy, and the cast of characters includes Bruce Lee and John Wooden.

How about a Spurs-Pacers finals? Man, Stern and the TVs would shoot themselves!

I could totally see the Pacers shutting down Wade and Bosh (let Lebron make his 50 points) for a series. Or maybe not :(

In the West, it's open range. Don't like OKC's chances. Last year it was that wacky game from Ibaka, and those jumpers were raining... Durant is the man, but Westbrick is too inconsistent, and Perkins is minus one on offense. And the bench is... hmm... Clipper's bench could make a difference after long series, but I'm still putting my money on Pop's dirty dozen.